Doppelganger

by Byron Starr

  “Carl?” James asked.

  “I want to know how you plan on going about killing this thing before I agree to anything,” Carl said.

  “If I told you, you’d think I was crazy. Hell, maybe I am, but I really think I can kill it. There’ll be no risk to anybody else, just me. All I need is a little help to set it up.”

  Carl was going to object, but he saw something else in James’ eyes other than madness. He saw hope. James thought his plan would work, and for now, that would have to do. Carl leaned forward. “I’m all ears.”

  Still looking at Carl, James said. “We don’t have much time before the beast is back in his lair, asleep and listening in on every word we say, so I’ll be brief. You’re going to send Emilio home to Midland, right?”

  “Hey wait a minute,” Emilio protested, shifting to the edge of his seat.

  “I hadn’t given it any thought yet,” Carl answered, “but if you’re right and Emilio is a target for that thing, then he’s not safe here, and he places everyone around him in danger.”

  “Your role will be minor,” James said to Carl. “In fact, if this doesn’t go right, and I end up dead, you’ll be able to say you had nothing to do with it – the Department will be completely in the clear.”

  Carl nodded. “I’m listening.”

  “Tomorrow I’m going to stay away from town. I would prefer to have a patrol car so it would appear,” James tapped his head with his finger to emphasize that he was referring to what the beast would see, “like I’m on official business. If that thing’s smart enough to pull off what it did last night, I don’t want to take any chances on it getting suspicious. I also need Emilio to be at his house, alone, all day tomorrow. From at least eleven in the morning till sundown. After that you can send him off.”

  James turned to Emilio. “I’ll stop by at one for a brief visit, and we’ll put on a little act for our friend’s benefit. You’ll say Carl tried to send you off today, but you didn’t want to go. Basically make up some bullshit, but be sure and mention that you will be at home all night, but you’ll be leaving the day after. I’ll mention that I’m going to be coming by to check on you at around one in the morning. At just after ten tonight I’ll show up at your house — the beast should be out and about and not listening in by then. You’ll take the patrol car back into town, and I’ll stay.”

  “Leaving you by yourself. Hell, no.” Emilio said.

  But another aspect of the plan had caught Carl’s attention. “If the thing is after both of you, why go through all the trouble to make it seem like Emilio’s the bait?” Carl asked. “Why not just use yourself, at your own house?”

  “I think it’ll be a little less cautious going after Emilio than it would me. Look at the way it attacked him in broad daylight the other day. Besides, if it’s figured out what I have, it may be a little wary of me.”

  * * *

  The beast awoke just after the sunset. It pulled itself up and leaned on the log it had slept beside all night.

  The beast brought its right hand up to its face. The bullet had entered on the outside of the first knuckle of the first finger and passed diagonally through the hand until it exited near the joining point of the wrist and the hand. Tendons had been severed on the first two already damaged fingers, making them fold up, useless. The pain in the beast’s hand was even worse than in its shoulder, and it was sure it knew the cause of the pain.

  The One That Caused Pain. It had smelled him. It had heard him. It knew he had been there.

  The beast had hurt, and probably killed The Dying One, but The One Who Sees and The One Who Caused Pain got away.

  But tonight, The One Who Caused Pain would die.

  * * *

  It was five minutes till ten when James drove up Emilio’s driveway for the second time of the day.

  Emilio was sitting on the edge of the unpainted wooden porch, his legs dangling off the side. A small grey suitcase was sitting on the ground by his feet, and his crutches were propped up beside him. James parked the patrol car next to Emilio’s battered Blazer and walked up to the porch.

  “Are you sure you want to go through with this hare-brained idea of yours?” Emilio asked.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Anything I can do to talk you out of it?”

  James leaned up against Emilio’s truck. He stood looking down at the ground, not wanting to make eye contact with Emilio, afraid that Emilio might see how scared he really was. He shook his head.

  “Can I at least stay and help you?” Emilio asked.

  “No. Only I can be here, and don’t ask me to explain, because I can’t.”

  “Well, I don’t understand what good it did us to go through all this crap to make it seem like I was going to be here tonight just to have my ass hauled out to West Texas,” Emilio snapped. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

  James didn’t answer, or look up; he glanced at his watch and said, “You’d better be getting on the road.”

  Emilio looked as though he had more to say, then picked up his suitcase and limped over to the patrol car. He put the suitcase in the backseat, opened the driver’s door and slid into the driver’s seat, carefully avoiding bringing his wounded knee into contact with the steering wheel.

  Before he shut the door, he said, “Please tell me this isn’t just a hare-brained plan to take a pot-shot at this killer and hope you’re lucky.”

  “It’s not,” James said, without turning to face his friend.

  Emilio shut the door then rolled down the window and said, “Good luck.”

  “Thanks,” James said.

  * * *

  After Emilio drove off, James remained leaning on the truck, thinking. James remained propped up on the SUV for about five minutes. When he finished, he got up and walked into the trailer. He went to Emilio’s bathroom, and looked in the cabinets. Finding a bottle of Emilio’s cologne, he put it on, heavily. He then took off the clothes he was wearing and put on some of Emilio’s dirty clothes that were in a hamper in the bathroom; they were a loose fit, but they would have to do.

  After James finished in the bathroom, he returned to the living room. He turned on the TV, flipped to the weather channel, and plopped down in the recliner. He placed the remote on the floor beside the recliner, and Greg’s pistol was taken from its holster and kept ready in James’ right hand.

  The plan hinged on several minor details. If any one of them went wrong everything would fall through. The first minor, yet exceedingly important, detail was that James had to fall asleep, and this was no small task. Alone, James was about to face a creature that had killed his son, his wife and unborn child, his best friend and twelve other people over a span of a little over a month, and just last night attacked a jailhouse filled with armed men leaving five dead and one critically injured. It was hardly the best circumstance to be catching a nap.

  The second minor detail was that James would have to wake up, but he would worry about that when — if — he got there.

  James glanced at the clock: 10:09 p.m.

  For what seemed like an eternity, James sat in Emilio’s recliner, watching The Weather Channel. This had always been a foolproof way for James to get to sleep. A world ago, he could remember Angie picking on the fact that every time he tried to catch the weather before he went to bed he would fall asleep in his recliner. She would pass through the living room, see him watching the Weather Channel, and comment, should I bring you your pillow? But tonight it didn’t seem to be working. James then tried the time-honored tradition of counting sheep. That didn’t work either.

  James glanced at the clock on Emilio’s VCR: 10:31 p.m.

  James was beginning to worry that he wouldn’t get to sleep in time. This was a problem on top of a problem. The more he worried, the less likely he was to be able to fall asleep. It wasn’t until what seemed like the one-hundredth time that Your Local Weather scrolled across the screen that James finally began to even yawn.

  10:54 p.m.

&nbs
p; On the weather channel, a young brunette lady was pointing out the highs in the Midwest. In a way, she looked like Angie. Although her hair was a different color, it was long like Angie’s when they had first met. The young weather-girl’s eyes were blue, not blueish-green like Angie’s, but they had the same shape. James closed his eyes and concentrated on the girl’s voice. Her voice even sounded like Angie’s.

  ... highs in St Louis will be around ...

  ... snow flurries are expected in the. ...

  ... a cold front moving in. ...

  ... and on to the West ...

  ...Diego expect a low ...

  ... rain and sleet through ...

  ... I love you, James.

  James was asleep.

  * * *

  The night air was cold. Another front was moving in, pushing cold air ahead of it. In the distance, flashes of lightning could be seen dancing across the horizon as a storm approached.

  The beast crashed through the underbrush. It followed its own scent along a route it had traveled just three days ago. It loped along with its crippled right arm drawn to its chest. Its left side and right shoulder were somewhat sore, but not enough to restrict movement. The beast’s injured left ankle caused it to have a slight limp when walking on two legs; it was but a mere annoyance and certainly no hindrance to its mobility.

  The beast was battered, but it was still just as deadly as it had been a week ago. Maybe even more dangerous, as any animal grows more dangerous when it’s wounded.

  Of course the beast was no animal, not really. It had the heightened senses and instincts of a predator, the intelligence of a human, the sadistic depravity of a demon, not to mention the strange ability to enter other creatures’ minds and change their perceptions of itself. What was this beast? Where did it come from? Why did it come? Not even the beast itself knew for sure. But like James Taylor, The One Who Sees, had said, It doesn’t matter where the damn thing came from. All that matters is it’s here.

  The beast was now within about a half mile of the den of The One Who Caused Pain. It slowed its pace. Hatred hadn’t overridden the beast’s actions tonight as it had when it made its daylight attack three days ago.

  It continued along, crossing a road and passing into a thin line of trees. On the other side of the trees the beast could see the lights from the den of The One Who Caused Pain.

  * * *

  James was still sitting in Emilio’s recliner, with Greg’s old pistol in his hand.

  He awoke suddenly, but, incredibly, he was calm.

  Here goes nothing.

  James closed his eyes, but he could still see. It was like all of his senses were floating ahead of him in an out-of-body experience that would have been very disorienting to another person, but it was something James had become quite accustomed to. Only this time he wasn’t riding along in some creature’s mind while his body lay asleep miles away. His plan hinged on the belief that if he and the beast shared the ability to see through each others mind as they slept, maybe they shared the beast’s other ability as well. So far it appeared as if James had been right.

  His senses shot forward and passed through the wall of Emilio’s trailer and sped across the front yard toward the row of trees that blocked the view of the trailer from the road.

  When James’ free-floating senses first reached the row of trees, he didn’t see or hear anything. This was something James hadn’t accounted for. He was working with his own human senses rather than the creature’s incredibly heightened ones. James knew the beast had been on the edge of the woods, looking at the trailer, and he was quite sure it had been to the left of Emilio’s driveway. So James moved to where the driveway passed through the line of trees. He then guided his senses along the tree line, moving quite fast, because time was of the essence. As his senses sped along, he almost passed right by the beast, which had moved just outside of the trees and was standing on two legs. James’ senses came to a stop behind the beast, turned toward it, and passed through its body.

  As James’ senses hovered in front of the beast, no more then six inches from its face, he took full note of its horrible ugliness. The skin of its hairless face was wrinkled and splotched, like that of an old man with liver spots, except instead of thin frail skin, the beast’s dark skin looked to be thick and leathery. Its ears were perched high on its head; currently they were raised high and pointed forward, but they would be laid back when the beast was running or attacking. Its nose looked extremely alien; it ran from the center of its eyes to above its mouth like a human’s, but it didn’t look at all human-like. It had an abnormally wide bridge — about one inch wide — and slits in its nose where normal nostril holes should have been. Its lipless mouth and its two rows of teeth were too big for its head; some of the serrated teeth were about an inch and a half, some were less than a half an inch, and there seemed to be no order to how they were distributed in its mouth. Its eyes were horrible. They had an elongated evil squint, and sloped down toward the nose. It appeared that its eyes lacked any color whatsoever, just a solid flat black. If the eyes are the window to the soul, then this beast had a soul as vile as the devil himself.

  James’ detached senses took the window to the left into the beast’s mind.

  Once inside, it was as if a hidden, computer-like part of James’ mind took over. Pictures, accompanied by sight and smell, and even touch and taste in some cases, began to speed through his mind at a speed so fast there was no way his normal consciousness could have made sense of it. He had been in the beast’s mind when it had performed this, but he never grasped what was really going on until it was his own mind in another creature’s: it was like a computer downloading another computer’s memory.

  James’ mind found the memory of Emilio, The One Who Caused Pain.

  James felt his mind touch the creature’s mind briefly. He felt intense hate. Not just for Emilio, but for anything and everything. It was as if the beast was the embodiment of hate.

  Or maybe the embodiment of evil.

  Then James’ senses were in front of the beast. They remained there briefly, before starting across the yard toward the trailer. James realized that his senses, or rather his detached consciousness, had been inside the beast’s mind when it sent its senses forward. Now James’ senses were along for the ride, in an out-of-body experience within an out-of-body experience.

  Unaware of its passenger, the beast’s senses passed Emilio’s battered SUV. It passed over the porch and passed through the wall into the living room.

  There, in the recliner, eyes closed and apparently asleep, was Emilio Rodriguez, The One Who Caused Pain. In his right hand was the remote to the television.

  It had worked.

  Then as the beast’s senses approached the face of Emilio/James something startled James, a minor detail he had left out. The beast wasn’t entering Emilio’s mind; it was entering James’ mind. When it searched James’ mind, would it be able to tell the difference?

  The beast’s senses passed into Emilio/James’ right eye, and began looking for a memory. The memories that flew by in a blur were all familiar to James. The beast found an image of James; one of him shaving in the bathroom mirror. There seemed to be nothing different from the several other times James had been along while the beast pulled an image from a mind. The beast didn’t seem to notice there was anything different about Emilio.

  Near the edge of the woods, the beast opened its eyes.

  Inside the trailer, James opened his eyes.

  * * *

  A knock came at the door. ���Emilio?” the beast said in James’ voice.

  James didn’t answer, not out loud anyway. The part of his mind that had found the memory in the beast’s mind opened a direct link with this memory and answered in the beast’s head, using Emilio’s voice. Things must be boring in the big city of Newton; you’re an hour early.

  James got out of the recliner and slowly walked toward the door, Greg’s pistol gripped tight in his hand.

 
; “Hurry, it’s cold out here,” the beast said in James’ mind.

  Hold your horses. I’m coming.

  James put his hand on the doorknob.

  He took a beep breath.

  He swung the door open with his left hand and brought the pistol up with his right. It all happened in a split second, but that one instant seemed frozen in time for James.

  James, The One Who Sees, standing with a pistol leveled at his own likeness.

  The beast, The One Who Kills, standing with its left arm cocked back to swing at Emilio who was pointing a TV remote in his face.

  James pulled the trigger. Fire leaped from the TV remote/nine-millimeter. The bullet struck the beast under its right eye, just beside its nose. The arm that was coiled to strike had started its arch, but when the bullet passed through the lower part of the beast’s brain and exited out the back of its head, the arm shot straight out, jerked one time, and went limp.

  The beast collapsed on the porch, its illusion fading away. The hideous man-like creature lay sprawled on its back, its chest moving slowly with its labored breathing.

  James kept the pistol leveled on its face as he stepped up and stood over the vile beast.

  Then the beast’s dark eyes fell on James and seemed to recognize him. Its face shimmered and slowly took the form of James’ face once more. In a last defiant gesture the James/beast smiled and said, “Angie, I’m home.”

  James pulled the trigger and continued to do so until he had emptied the clip into the beast’s face.

  Epilogue

  James met the Oates family in the third floor lobby of Saint Elizabeth Hospital. The presence of this large extended family came as a shock to James. Aside from Faye, Bill had never spoken of his family. Likewise, James remembered that the only family picture in the old sheriff’s office was an old snapshot of him and Faye. But, here they were; two sons, two daughters, nine grandchildren, and one great grandchild — one and a half if you gave credit for his youngest granddaughter-in-law, who looked to be at least eight months pregnant. If it hadn’t been for the sincere looks of concern on their faces, James might have suspected that the reason Bill never mentioned his family was that his gruff demeanor had alienated him from his own kin, but it didn’t take James long to realize just how much the old man’s family loved him. Especially the grandchildren; they were full of questions concerning their beloved Pawpaw’s welfare. It was difficult to imagine the ornery old sheriff surrounded by loving grandchildren, but the evidence was indisputable. James imagined he knew the answer to this mystery. When Bill was at home and among his family, he was the loving grandfather, father, and husband, but when he put on his badge and went to work, the entire county became his family — a family that required a considerable amount of tough love.